Making Chocolate from Scratch

Our afternoon activity yesterday was learning how to make chocolate. No other students joined us, so we had a private lesson. Cindy, our Guatemalan activity-coordinator at the school, makes and sells 300 pounds of chocolate a week!! We made one pound of chocolate – and that was tough work!

Here’s how we did it:

1. Buy 1 lb of cacao beans (Cindy bought them at the market, ~$3 USD/lb).

2. Separate the big beans from the small ones.

3. Toast the beans until dark brown, keeping the big ones separate because they take longer to toast.

4. Separate the shell of the bean from the cacao nibs.

5. “Moler” the beans: pass through a grinder x 3 times.

6. Thoroughly mix 1 lb of sugar for every 1 lb of beans.

7. Pass mixture through grinder again.

8. Enjoy with milk (hot or cold) or just eat it “straight-up.”

chocolate con leche: frio y caliente

The chocolate we made was very pure – only cocoa nibs and sugar. We sampled it before adding the sugar: 100% cacao. It was very bitter and acidic. With the sugar it was dark and delicious.